The present application relatestto reclining chairs, and in particular to such chairs wherein the seating is suspended from the frame by means of flexible members such as cables, plastic or metallic strips, chains, or the like.
The common chair, normally comprises a fixed frame supporting a seating board and a back board. To increase comfort both boards may be upholstered, and the frames may be designed with some structural flexibility. It has been shown, however, that the greatest user's comfort comes from a chair's ability to assume different seating positions which the conventional side chair can not provide, since it is basically rigid. When comfort is paramount and cost, weight and looks are secondary, some side chairs have been built like office task chairs comprising a spider base, which is connected at its upper end to a reclining mechanism having a pivotal axis extending from side to side of the seating.
In the above mentioned co-pending patent application advanced there is disclosed a reclinable mechanism which is totally inside the tubular chair frame. The advantages of this chair over conventional reclining side chairs are lower weights and costs. In addition the chair presents a very clean look since the reclinable mechanism is hidden. One disadvantage of this chair, however, is that the seat is suspended by flexible metallic straps which travel over wheels. This results in assembly problems in that the wheels must be precisely positioned within the frame members as well as reliability problems. Moreover, the cross section of the frame members of this chair must be sufficiently large to accommodate the wheels and the wheels must be sufficiently large to support the weight of the user.
In view of the above, it is the principal object of the present invention to provide an improved reclining chair which maintains the advantages of the chair described in the co-pending application doing away with the shortcomings mentioned above.
It is a further object to provide such a chair which introduces new levels of comfort and aesthetics to the user, is safe to use and economical to manufacture.